November 11, 2009

Daniel Brophy: here to help veterans

With Point Man Ministries, Brophy wants to help local veterans in their battle against post-traumatic stress

By Sam Craig
The Chronicle

     In the 1800s, it was known as “railway spine” after survivors of train crashes suffered from mental anguish following the accident. When soldiers returned home from the battlefield with anxiety, fear and had combat flashbacks, military doctors called it “exhaustion,” “shell shock,” “battle fatigue,” “inability to adapt” and “traumatic war neurosis.”
     Then, in the 1970s, it became recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
     What was once seen as a confounding, possibly imagined illness, became a serious threat and was getting recognition. The only problem was — and still is — is that many who served in the military wouldn’t seek treatment.
     Point Man International Ministries would like to change that. The organization is trying to get the message out that PTSD isn’t a sign of weakness, mental illness or something to be shameful about. They want soldiers to know that PTSD is a normal reaction to the horrors of war, and just like someone would get their physical wounds treated, a person with PTSD can’t just ignore their symptoms either.
     In The Dalles, Point Man Ministries’ Daniel R. Brophy is the man to talk to about PTSD and combat-related injuries, physical, as well as mental and spiritual. As Outpost Leader for The Dalles branch of Point Man, Brophy meets with local veterans suffering the effects of PTSD. With the Point Man Outpost in The Dalles, vets can discuss their experiences and get help from a Christian perspective.
     Brophy, a Christian veteran himself, knows all about coming back from service with injuries received in battle.
     He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1957 and was shipped off to his first tour in Okinawa, Japan with the Third Marine Division. He was an atomic warhead specialist.
     After coming back, he became a criminal investigator in the Corps. From there he went back to artillery and then, in 1961 he went to the drill field for schooling before becoming a drill sergeant at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego in 1962 and 63.
     In 1963, Brophy married his wife Lynn, to whom he has been married 46 years. He then left the drill field, went back to artillery and volunteered to go to Vietnam.
     Before being shipped to Vietnam, Brophy went to Army Special Forces training, language school to learn Vietnamese and military advisory training at the Command School.
     Brophy shipped off to Vietnam. His daughter was born in late 1963 while he was there. In 1964, Brophy was assigned to the Military Advisory Command Vietnam, MACV, in the Special Operations Group for his first hitch in Vietnam.
“I was an advisor to the Vietnamese Marines in 1964 and 65,” Brophy said. “Saw quite a bit of action. I received a battlefield commission as a result of some situations that took place. I went from Sergeant E-6 to Second Lieutenant in 1966 because it took a while for the battlefield commission to catch up with me upon returning.”
     When he came back, Brophy was part of the F-Battery, Second Battalion, 13th Marines. He left the F-Battery as the executive officer and went to aerial observation school in New River, N.C. in preparation for scouting out North Vietnamese Army strongholds. Following that, he came back for 36 weeks of language school to learn more Vietnamese. Between tours, Brophy’s wife Lynn gave birth to their second child, a son, in 1967.
     Brophy was placed as executive officer for the aerial reconnaissance team for Da Nang. The area was known as the “rocket belt” due to the large number of rocket and mortar attacks by the North Vietnamese Army.
     In January 1969, Brophy took his wife and children to Hawaii on rest and recuperation. As soon as his R and R was over, Brophy went back to Vietnam. It was his last tour of duty.
     “On Feb. 3, 1969, I was shot through the foot, the knee and the neck with a .50 caliber machine gun by North Vietnamese Army troops in a hostile gun battle,” Brophy said. “And that was the last time I took a step. It’s been 40 years.”
     Three of the golf ball-sized, tenth-pound bullets ripped through Brophy’s flesh and bones. He was paralyzed and is confined to a wheelchair.
     Frustrated and not seeing any future success for himself, he stayed at home after his medical retirement from the Marine Corps in 1970.
     “My wife became my strength and my primary caregiver,” Brophy said. “She was taking care of two young children and one incapacitated Marine who was pretty angry.”
     His wife suggested he go back to college. After trying a few different majors that didn’t really work for him, he moved his family from their home near Long Beach, Calif., to Hawkinson, Wash., where they raised their children.
     Brophy returned to college, where he graduated with a master’s degree in social work from Portland State University. He got a job with the Veterans Administration and his family began to grow again as Brophy and Lynn took in foster children.
     “The kids would drag other kids home like puppies,” he said. “They’d say, ‘Can we keep them?’ My wife and I would make sure there was a legal arrangement made with the parents so we had custody of the children. We never went through any of the foster care facilities for the State of Washington, these were just children we took in and raised. We were sitting nine to the table. Nine children, plus my wife and I. Irene Wells was mother of four of the children. We took in her and her whole family.”
     Brophy was ordained as a minister in 1978. In 1985, he moved his family from Hawkinson to Reno, Nev. He became a pastoral counselor at Reno’s Foursquare Church, where he worked for 13 years.
     In 1998, he and Lynn decided to move back to the Pacific Northwest to be closer to their children. During his time in Reno, Brophy began counseling veterans who were suffering through PTSD and decided to continue when he got to Oregon.
     “In 1986, I became involved with Point Man International Ministries,” he said. “I was the Nevada State Coordinator for Point Man. We started working with posttraumatic stress disorder in veterans, brother to brother, vet to vet, throughout the whole United States. Then, when I moved up here, rather than remain the Oregon State Coordinator, which was offered to me, I declined because I preferred to be The Dalles Outpost Leader.”
     Here, Brophy offers his services, both as a minister and a counselor to veterans. Brophy helps those suffering and trying to readjust to civilian life to get them back in touch with what life is like when you don’t have insurgents setting bombs and shooting at you. For some soldiers, that can be a tough transition.
The stress of the battlefield follows them home and, while it still affects those who have been away from combat, recently returned veterans are Brophy’s main concern.
     “Sometimes, there are Vietnam vets who still need counseling, which is fine, but troops who came back more recently have priority,” Brophy said. “If someone experiences a momentary relapse, we never deny them, we never say no, but the Iraqi and Afghani vets, they’re our priority.”
     Brophy says that anyone who suspects they may be suffering from combat-related PTSD should give him a call.
     According to the Point Man website, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder include:
     “Depression, cynicism and distrust of government and authority, anger, alienation, isolation, sleep disturbances, poor concentration, tendency to react under stress with survival tactics, psychic or emotional numbing, negative self-image, memory impairment, emotional constriction, hypersensitivity to justice, loss of interest in work and activities, problems with intimate relationships, survivor guilt, difficulty with authority figures, hyper-alertness, hyper-arousal, avoidance of activities that arouse memories of traumas in war zone, emotional distance from children, wife, and others, self-deceiving and self-punishing patterns of behavior, such as an inability to talk about war experiences, fear of losing others, and a tendency to fits of rage, suicidal feelings and thoughts, flashbacks to dangers and combat, fantasies of retaliation and destruction and high risk employment/recreation.”
     Seeking triggers that bring back the rush from battle is a common event, Brophy says, and the risks that come with those choices can be quite dangerous.
     “We’ve become very much aware of what the causes of PTSD are and what precipitates so much of the stress,” Brophy said. “See, when you’re running on adrenaline a lot, you trigger an endorphin. It’s like a high. People will come back and go into that sort of thing.”
     Though he and many soldiers have suffered the after effects of combat, he said, he credits his family as being the rock that kept him anchored.
     “When I was over in Vietnam, she was taking care of our kids at home,” Brophy said. “She was running the house. It’s not like she was sitting around the house twiddling her thumbs or out hitting the bars. She was up to her beltloops in alligators.”
     For more information on PTSD and where to find help, contact Daniel Brophy at 296-3597 or by email at pointman@netcnct.com.